The present case may, in view of the foregoing consideration, be
disposed of without difficulty. Letters patent are asked, by applicant,
for a new design for a rubber eraser, which consists in giving to the
eraser a cylindrical body, with ends beveled to an edge. The claim is
for the "cylindrical rubber eraser provided with a wrapper or case, as
herein shown and described"

In the body of the specification the applicant describes the mode of
making the eraser, and he also enumerates its advantages over erasers of
the ordinary forms.

The Examiner does not object to the application because of the utility
of the eraser, although the Board of Examiners in Chief seem to base
their decision upon that point alone, but he pronounces the form already
old in its application to artists' stumps, and he insists that the mode
of composition or construction can form no element, for the claim for a
design patent.

In the latter statement he is undoubtedly right. These patents are
granted solely for new shapes or forms, and the form being new it is
immaterial by what process that form is attained. The composition of
matter or the mode of construction is neither "design," "shape," nor
"configuration," and must be protected, if at all, under a patent of
another kind. I cannot say that the presence of such matter in the
specification would be objectionable if description merely, but it could
in no way be allowed to enter into, or to modify the claim.

As to the first ground of rejection, I think the Examiner is in error.
This purports to be a new form or shape of a distinct article of
manufacture, to wit: rubber erasers. If it be new, as thus applied, it